From March until October

Double room €95-115 per night (breakfast included)

En-suite bathroom (bath or shower)
Telephone
Mini-bar
Air conditioning

Sitting room
Large garden with terraces

The Perleas Mansion is in Kambos, a beautiful green and lush area known for its lovely old Genoese mansions, not far from the capital of the island of Hios. It is an excellent location if you want to explore the entire island (you should!), enjoy the quiet countryside (you will!), and also relax on the beach (the nearest is less than 4 km away).

Hios can be reached by fast ferry boat from Piraeus (about six hours) or by plane (several flights per day from Athens, and in the summer some direct flights from abroad). To get to the guesthouse from the town of Hios you should follow the coastal road towards the airport. Take a right immediately after the airport (at the end of the landing strip) and then take a left towards Kalimasia. Turn into the second (narrow) lane on your left after you pass the BP petrol station. At the end of this lane, on your right, you’ll find the Perleas Mansion.

Hios is a fascinating island. Well off the beaten tourist track, it is a great destination if you’re after a combination of good beaches, places of interest and beautiful nature, while avoiding the crowds.

The island is famous for its mastiha production – the sticky, tasty resin of the mastic tree that was used as a chewing gum in ancient times (and in Greece still is today!). So you might as well start with the mastihohoria, the medieval villages in the southern part of the island, where the ‘gum’ is still produced, such as Pyrgi, Mesta, Vessa and Olymbi. They are all extremely pretty; Pyrgi, where the houses here are decorated with local-style xystra, walls scratched in white and grey geometric patterns, is perhaps the most interesting of the lot.

Also in other parts of the island there are scores of amazing villages to visit (the castle village of Anavatos in the middle of the island, picturesque Volissos in the north…), as well as impressive monasteries (notably the 11th century Nea Moni Monastery in the centre of the island).

There are also lots of beaches worth exploring. Karfas on the east coast is the best known (sandy with shallow water) and not bad for families with young children, but it has become too developed and crowded. In the south, Vroulidia is a wonderful sandy beach with turquoise water, and you should certainly go and see the black stoned Mavra Volia beach. (The stones get very hot so bring flip flops!) On the west coast you have many beaches to choose from. Most are a combination of sand and small stones. They are all blissfully quiet and even in August you can still find beaches that are practically empty.

The capital of Hios is not as interesting as the rest of the island, though the Byzantine castle, several museums and a lively street market are worth visiting. One of the greatest treasures of the island is the area of Kambos, some kilometres south of the capital. It is one of the most fertile parts of the island, with lovely old Genoese mansions set in verdant gardens and olive, fruit and vegetable producing estates. This is where the Genoese upper class lived during the heydays of the island, and later, the Greek gentry (many Greek shipping magnates still have houses here).